‘They who lack time to mourn, lack time to mend.
Eternity mourns that.’
[1]. Philip van Artevelde.
She spent a great deal of her time at Woburn, with her parents-in-law, where she and her children were ever welcome; often meditating, and frequently delaying her return to the once happy home of sweet Stratton. But she was detained at Woburn first by the death of her mother-in-law, and then by the dangerous illness of her son, which crushing anxiety she thus turns to good account. Speaking of the possibility of losing ‘the little creature,’ she writes to Dr. Fitzwilliam, ‘God has made me see the folly of imagining I had nothing left, the deprivation of which could be matter of much anguish, or its possession of any considerable refreshment.’ But the blow was averted and the boy recovered. She left Woburn, and instead of going direct to Stratton she started for Totteridge in Hertfordshire, with him and her eldest girl, while little Katey was left at Woburn to keep company with her aged grandfather.
No one was more alive to the noble and loveable qualities of Lady Russell than her dear lord’s father, and he writes her a most tender and pathetic letter, evincing the deepest interest in her and her children, especially in the recovery of the young heir, whose illness had caused so much anxiety to the whole family. He addresses her as his dearest daughter, and expresses himself in the quaint and courteous, though somewhat stilted style of the day, hoping soon to have some comfortable tidings of her and her dear little ones, assuring her that his grandson is the subject of his constant prayers, and that while he has breath he remains her affectionate father and friend to command. Written from Woburn Abbey, the 7th day of June 1684; with a postscript: ‘My dear love and blessing to my dear boy, and to Mistress Rachel. I am much cheered by Mistress Catherine’s company; she is often with me, and looks very well.’ It is interesting to remember that the respective ages of these two playfellows were nine, and eighty.
Lady Russell moved afterwards with her family to Southampton House, so full of memories, sweet and bitter, of early happiness, subsequent anxiety, and utter desolation. She was in London at the time of the King’s death, and although she had no reason to regret Charles, yet to one whose interest was never deadened in the course of public affairs, there was little to be hoped for in the accession of James the Second. The trials of Algernon Sidney, Hampden, and others, who were associated with the memory of her lord, made her wounds bleed afresh, more especially the execution of the Duke of Monmouth, Lord Russell’s most intimate friend. ‘Never,’ she writes, ‘had a poor creature more awakers to quicken and revive her sorrow’; yet in alluding to Monmouth’s fate she owns herself void of reason, that she should weep when she ought to rejoice ‘that so good a man is safely landed on the blessed shores of a safe eternity.’ She was detained in London longer than she wished by the arrival of her uncle the Marquis de Ruvigny, who had come over from France to assist in the endeavour to gain from the King and Government the subversion of the attainder which affected the Russell children. Very interesting letters and documents on this subject are extant at Woburn Abbey. Lady Russell was very much attached to her uncle, and welcomed him, his wife, and a favourite niece, to her house, where the last-mentioned relative fell sick of malignant fever and died, to the inexpressible grief of De Ruvigny. Rachel’s anxiety on account of her own children may be imagined; she removed them to the country, and then returned to London to comfort her sorrowing uncle. De Ruvigny later on resided permanently in England, and became the centre of a small colony of French refugees which settled at Greenwich, and he ended his days in this country. The Earl of Devonshire, the faithful friend (when Lord Cavendish) of William Russell, who had offered to change clothes with him and remain in his stead in prison, had never slackened in his friendship for his friend’s widow; and he now came forward with a proposal of marriage between his eldest son and Rachel’s eldest daughter and namesake.
In those days no time was lost in such matters. My Lord Cavendish was sixteen, Mistress Rachel fourteen. There were difficulties about settlements (car l’histoire se répète) among the lawyers, but the marriage did come off at last in spite of those everlasting impediments to the course of true love. Deeply interested as she was in domestic details and in arrangements for the future of her child, Lady Russell was no indifferent spectator to the rapid strides which James the Second was making towards the downfall of political and religious liberty which he was too short-sighted to foresee would include his own. When M. Dykeveldt, the minister plenipotentiary from Holland, arrived in London, he waited on Lady Russell by the commands of the Prince and Princess of Orange, being the bearer of autograph letters and the most flattering messages from their Highnesses, speaking in terms of the highest admiration and esteem of her patriot lord and the noble family to which he belonged, and assuring her of friendship and sympathy and the hope that they might in the future be useful to her and her son. Thus commenced a correspondence which brought forth important fruits in the coming changes. Her first visit to Stratton was very trying to her heart, and though grateful that the children were too young to share those feelings to any great extent, she could not but rejoice to perceive in Mistress Rachel some memory of the loss they had sustained, but then to be sure, as the reader will take into consideration, Rachel Russell the younger was already fourteen years of age and a promised wife! Three days the poor widow always gave to seclusion and reflection, the anniversaries of the arrest, trial, and execution of her lord. In the winter the family removed to London, and preparations were now going on briskly for the marriage, when the poor fiancée fell sick of the measles, and it was not till midsummer 1689 that the celebration of the marriage actually took place, being hurried at the last, we are told, because my Lord (Devonshire, the bridegroom’s father) was in haste to go to the Bath.
The young couple spent their (crescent) honeymoon between Southampton House and Woburn Abbey, and then the bridegroom set forth on a course of foreign travel to finish his education which lasted two years, while my Lady Cavendish remained an inmate of her mother’s home. The leading members of the houses of Cavendish and Russell were among those influential personages who had invited the Prince and Princess of Orange to come over to England to the rescue of the kingdom; and when they actually landed Rachel put herself in constant communication with her old friend Bishop Burnet, at that time in the suite of the future monarchs. She accompanied her aged father-in-law to London, in time to witness the flight of James the Second, and there is extant an amusing letter from young Lady Cavendish in which she describes to a bosom friend, the decision of the two Houses of Parliament that William and Mary of Orange should be King and Queen. She goes on to say she was present at the proclamation, which gave her great pleasure, ‘for were they not in the room of King James, my father’s murderer?’ At night she went to Court to kiss the Queen’s hand, the King’s also, with her mother-in-law, the Countess of Devonshire. She describes William ‘as a man of no presence; he is homely at first sight, but when one looks long on him he has something both wise and good.’ The Queen she considers very handsome, and most graceful.
One of the first acts of the new King and Queen was the reversal of the attainder of William, Lord Russell; his execution had already been declared to be a murder by the vote of the House of Commons. Honours of different kinds were showered on the aged Earl of Bedford, the Earl of Devonshire, and many of Lady Russell’s connections and friends, while she herself was constantly referred to for advice and counsel by people whom she held in great esteem, such as Dr. Fitzwilliam and Archbishop Tillotson, who discussed with her questions of doctrine and faith, and the propriety or expediency of accepting preferment under the new régime. People of all opinions applied to Rachel to secure her good offices with the new Sovereigns, and Lady Sunderland, whose husband had been most instrumental in Lord Russell’s downfall, did not scruple to ask her intercession. Passing years brought fresh trials in their train for one who seemed indeed born for sorrow. In 1690 she lost her remaining sister, the wife of Ralph, Lord afterwards Duke of Montagu, and within a few weeks of her death she mourns that of her nephew Lord Gainsborough, ‘that engaging creature,’ she writes, ‘the only son of the sister whom I loved with so much passion,’ and now as a crowning grief she is threatened with blindness. It had been said that this infirmity proceeded from her constant weeping; and though one of her biographers argues that it was impossible on account of the particular nature of the disease, being cataract, those who unfortunately have experience in such cases know well how noxious to the sight is the briny nature of sorrow’s flood. It is piteous to read her sad anticipations of the coming evil, and how she will have to forego that great relaxation and comfort to her, of what she terms ‘society at a distance. But while light is left her she will work.’
Lord Cavendish having now returned from the Continent was joined by his young wife, and there was a sad gap when dearest Rachel left her home. The fond mother writes to Lady Derby, Mistress of the Robes to Queen Mary, recommending her daughter, who was much at Court, to that lady’s kind protection; and now yet another of the young birds was called on to leave the nest. Mistress Kate was asked in marriage by Lord Roos, eldest son of the Earl of Rutland, esteemed the best match in all England. Yet there were reasons of a political and domestic nature which caused Lady Russell to hesitate before giving her final consent to the marriage. There is an amusing description of the grand reception which the newly married pair met with at the paternal estate of Belvoir, falling very little short of the pomp and splendour due to royalty on such occasions. We regret that our want of space precludes the introduction of some interesting details. Rachel did not go to the marriage, for noise and too much company made her eyes ache, and she was desirous to keep ‘the little bit of sight she had left,’ which deserted her as soon as a candle was lighted. There was still balm in Gilead. The operation for couching was successfully performed, and the patient, after making use of an amanuensis for some time, was able once more to resume her correspondence and enjoy ‘society at a distance.’ Following this inestimable blessing came the mark of royal favour which must have been a source of intense gratification to Rachel, Lady Russell. Her son-in-law and her father-in-law were both advanced to the rank of Dukes of Devonshire and Bedford. And in the case of the latter, the honour was enhanced to the old man, Lady Russell, and the whole family, by the tribute paid in the words of the patent to the memory of his patriot son. Sure never was sentiment so mingled before or since with legal and formal documents, but the words (or preamble as it is called) were those of the eloquent and refined Lord Chancellor Somers. The King in bestowing the highest dignity in his gift declares, ‘We think it not sufficient that his (Lord Russell’s) conduct and virtues should be transmitted to all future generations upon the credit of public annals, but will have them inserted in these our royal letters-patent as a monument consecrated to the most accomplished and consummate virtue,’ etc. etc. All honour to the house whose patent of nobility well deserves the name!